Jimmy teaches Food & Entrepreneurship (NUTR 280) at the Tufts Friedman School of Nutrition, co-teaches in an advisory/mentorship role for Master of Science in Innovation & Management students in New Product Innovation (EM221), and oversees special projects where current students are leading diverse teams rapidly crafting ideas towards revenue generation. Jimmy espouses three pillars of entrepreneurship; (1) Partnership- success does not happen in isolation; (2) Value- find repeat customers in your niche’s niche and understand market conditions; and (3) Why- “It’s not what you do, it’s why you do it”.
Jimmy is a Jumbo who graduated from Tufts with a BS in Civil Engineering, Dual Major in Economics, and received a Minor in Engineering Management. Jimmy has a love of basketball/coaching and a goal to make the world a healthier, more sustainable place, so it is a natural fit that he began teaching at his alma mater.
Initially, Jimmy worked as a highway design engineer (now P.E.) turned construction project manager, and started his first successful enterprise as a real estate developer focused on combining historic preservation with durable sustainability initiatives. (Business ideas that were not commercial successes include a fitness facility powered by human energy and a fantasy sports league straddling multiple sports…) Property management and consulting became natural extensions of Jimmy’s core real estate development business. In 2013 Jimmy partnered with a fellow Jumbo, Dr. Greg Katz, and in Washington, DC they co-founded a food business utilizing chickpeas as their primary ingredient. The business evolved into Watusee Foods with a category focus in consumer packaged snacks and breadcrumbs/coatings, and after-sales growth, the business was acquired in 2018.
Currently, Jimmy continues to be active in real estate, but his entrepreneurial energy is primarily focused on building — a team and the technology for — a SaaS tool to assist consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies selling items through retail.